SPOILER WARNING: 'S/I,' 'Becoming,' 'Amends.' This is supposed to take place a few months after the end of the third season.
RATING: PG
FEEDBACK: Please! Send feedback but no flames.
CONTENT WARNING: Just some angst. No sex or bad words.
SUMMARY: Angel, in L.A., and Buffy in Sunnydale, watch a rain shower and think about each other and about their lives. I have no idea how the season will end, so this is just my interpretation of how things could go.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Angel, Buffy or any other characters. Joss and the WB do. 'Another Rainy Night (Without You)' is by Queensryche.
"Strange, how laughter looks like crying with no sound
Raindrops taste like tears, without the pain."
******
Los Angeles--
I woke to the steady sounds of the rain beating on the roof of my apartment building and against my windows. I dragged myself out of bed as I always did and walked to the window where I threw back the heavy black curtains designed to keep out the sun's deadly rays in order to watch the rain I could hear so clearly.
In the streets below the puddles were already forming and the people scurrying around to get to wherever they were trying to get to tried desperately to avoid stepping in them and ruining their shoes. The large waterdrops made the concrete under the street lamps shine with an odd gleam, almost like thousands of little diamonds lining the L.A. street.
And that thought came; "Buffy should see this." I kicked myself mentally for such a thought as I reminded myself for the thousandth time in the past twenty four hours that I had left Sunnydale for a reason and that she was better off without me. But old habits are hard to kill for every time I see something beautiful, I instantly wish she was there to share it with me.
I forced my eyes from the rain just long enough to put on a shirt, pants and shoes. Without bothering with my hair, I exited my apartment and went to the roof access stairway. As soon as I reached the roof, a warm spray of summer rain hit my face, immediately wetting my clothes and hair. I walked to the very end of the building, five stories above the city and just sat down on the edge.
I come up here sometimes to think, clear my head and put my world into perspective. It's hard to make too much of yourself when you're looking down on the world below you like that, when you see just how small a single vampire with a soul really is in comparison with everything else. So, sitting on the edge, letting the rain drench me, I sat in silence.
It had rained that night too; the night I had left Sunnydale after I told her that it was best for everyone if I did.
I cursed myself, telling myself not to think about that, not to think about her, but I can't now, nor have I ever been able to help it. I can't not think about her when everything in the world reminds me in some way of her or the love we had. Even the rain. I've seen a thousand rainstorms and I'll see a thousand more, and there should be some other memory associated with the rain, but there isn't. It's of her. They all are.
Life perhaps would be better if the rain could just wash these thoughts away. Who knows. Maybe I'd even be better off if it could wash away my memories of her. Maybe I could sleep through the day if I had never known her. But who am I kidding? I can't wish I had never known her, never loved her. Despite how it ended, or the searing pain that goes through my heart every time I think of her, I could never regret it.
So, where does that leave me? Sitting on top of the roof of my L.A. apartment, watching the rain fall onto the crowded streets below. There are worse ways to spend an evening alone, I suppose.
The people below are walking to where ever they are going to; seeing the rain as an inconvenience, a hassle at best. No one takes the time anymore to smell the proverbial roses or notice the beauty around them, even in a place like this one. That's a sad testament to humanity. Maybe the reason that I'm up here now, watching the rain, is because I'm not human. I suppose if I only had a limited time on this planet I'd be concerned with a lot of other things rather than a summer shower. But, to tell the truth, I never had much of a sense of my own mortality. I 'died' when I was young, and young adults never think they're going to die. If I had known, of course, I would have lived my life differently.
But that was how I lived my life, and I have to live with that. Just like I have to go on knowing that I did the things that I did. I live with what I did to them, to Buffy, that caused me to leave place and the only person that ever felt like home to me. As a memory of Buffy, soaking wet the night we first made live, crashed through my subconscious, I shut my eyes, banishing it away, making it fall away from my head like raindrops. Swallowing away pain, I tasted the water in my mouth. It was salty, and as I opened my eyes I realized it wasn't rainwater I was tasting. It was tears. Tears that come from missing her too much.
*****
"I know I said before
Hate the sound of the closing door
Your footsteps walking away."
*****
Sunnydale--
As I looked out into the streets of Sunnydale from my bedroom window, I couldn't help but wonder if it was raining where ever Angel was too. I remembered the last time I saw him in the rain, the night we said good-bye. At least in the rain my tears didn't show as I watched him walk out of my life without looking back.
It had rained the night we made love too. We had run through the rain to his apartment and when we arrived, I was shivering. But my love for him, that had warmed me as we made love. And then, of course, on that same rainy night I lost him. Damn it, I wish it didn't hurt like this anymore. But I can't help it.
I don't get it...even after I sent him to Hell it didn't hurt this much. Maybe it's because this time he left me, knowingly left me under his own free will. Sure, he gave the excuses that it would be better for everyone, for the best, but that doesn't change the stinging pain every time I go someplace we went together, or when I think about something we did together before his change.
Is it like this for him?
Is he happy where he is? God, I hope so. That would almost be enough, enough to know that he can still have some kind of contentment. But I can't know that. He left with no forwarding address and I have long since stopped sitting by the phone waiting for him to call. But I wish he would.
He really was the only thing that made sense in my life. It used to be so divided between duty and what was right. But for some reason, he just made sense to me. Now the only thing that makes sense to me is that my life is missing something, something so important I feel like I'm drowning without it. That, of course, is him.
I hope that he is watching the rain, wherever he is. There's comfort in the idea that we're doing the same thing together, even though we're alone. I wonder if he's sitting at his window, watching the rain outside and thinking about me. Not thinking about the bad times, but all of the good ones that always fill my head when I think of him. I should think of the bad things when someone mentions his name, or when I think about him. But I don't. It's always the good things that we had. They'll always outweigh the bad, and if I never see him again, well, that's what I'll take with me.
God--to never see him again. I can't believe it's even come to that, when I don't know if I'll see him again. I even told him that I love him, but it hadn't kept him from going. I keep asking myself what I could have done to make him realize, make him see that I need him here, with me.
I'd give just about anything to see him again, just once. All I want is that chance to tell him that I still care, that I love him and need him here because without him my chaotic world makes no sense to me anymore. He was my balance, my grounding. I could always count on the fact that he was there, somewhere in the shadows. Now, he's gone, and what do I have to count on?
The drops on my face aren't from the rain...they're tears from missing my other half too much. For some reason, despite what we are and who we are, he made me whole. We were like two sides of the same coin, we go together so perfectly. Or, at least we did. Now, I'm here alone, watching the rain by myself from my bedroom window.
I've heard of people wishing on stars. I wonder if anyone can wish on a raindrop. If I can, then I only have one wish--to have Angel back. To have just one night the way we used to be. I just hope that even in a world like this; a world of demons and vampires, that maybe there is a little good somewhere that would allow my wish to come true.
******
"I'm all alone.
And it's another rainy night, without you.
Waiting by the phone, alone.
It's another rainy night, without you."
******